Today is January 8, which means in six days is the anniversery of my uncle's death. For the past couple of days, my mom has been searching for a bunch of pictures of her brother that she had received at his funeral. It worried her when she couldn't find them, which in turn worried me. It almost felt like if we had lost those photos, then somehow we weren't respecting his memory. While we were searching for the photos, we uncovered a bunch of other photos that I had never seen before. Photos of my mother's parents, who are both in Heaven now, when they were young.
For as long as I can remember, my mother has kept a framed picture of her mom in her room. A picture of her when she was very young, and very beautiful. I feel that my life has been shaped somewhat by Grandma Faye's early death--she died a year before my sister and I were born. I've grown up knowing that Faye's up in Heaven, and she loves us very much and she's always watching over us from Heaven. I don't know how theologically sound that is, but it helped shape my beliefs about death and Heaven. When I think of Heaven, I think of her. Always have.
Nowadays when I think of Heaven, not only do I think of her, but I think of my grandpa and my uncle. I also think of dancing. I'm not sure why dancing comes to mind, maybe because my grandpa is the one who taught me how to dance, but now I just can't imagine Heaven without dancing. Maybe that's why dancing is so special to me.
My mom finally found the pictures of her brother, much to our relief. I looked through them, and most of them made me laugh. He was so goofy, and he was also the only person I knew who could eat ketchup with literally everything.
Enough rambling for today. I hope I didn't depress anybody.
